Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

There has already been a lot of discussion in the media and online about this memoir of a Chinese American mother's strict parenting practices. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is honest, informative, interesting and entertaining, and I believe Chua is making fun of herself and her strict, "Chinese" style of parenting as much as she is promoting her methods.

While I wouldn't suggest that Chua's very controlling parenting philosophies be universally adopted, I think she makes some good points that are worth thinking about. For instance, since it takes hard work to get good at anything, and since being good at something makes it more fun, Chua believes pushing your child to work hard is a way of making them ultimately happier. Also, Chua points out that her view of her daughters is complimentary. She drives them so hard because she sees them as strong. She feels that always letting a child give up is bad for their self-esteem and doesn't prepare them for the future.

That said, by the end of the book even Chua admits her approach doesn't always work. Her younger daughter Lulu pushed back with great defiance against Chua's controlling manner, but even Lulu admits she's glad her mother forced her to work hard when she was younger. It's not hard to see that Lulu's success at tennis and "improv" comedy, pastimes her mother did not sanction, is at least partly due to the determination and drive her mother helped instill in her.

Lulu's older sister Sophia had a long, well written letter to her mother published in the January 17, 2011 edition of the New York Post. In it Sophia thanked her mother in detail for how she was raised. Among other things Sophia said is that far from turning her into a robot she believes her mother's strict methods have helped her be an independent thinker.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Totally Free kindle Books!

Last week, I blogged about free Kindle ebooks that I read on my Android phone using the free Amazon Kindle app. The app is free for reading kindle ebooks on your phone if you don't have the Kindle device itself. I had Kindle 3G last year, but it's broken now and can't afford to replace it.

Here's a comprehensive list of free books that you can start downloading right away. The books work the same on the Android app as it does on Kindle - there's no difference. The only concern I have with reading on mobile devices is size of the texts - they could damage your eyes if used regularly. If you have the money, you could pick one shiny Kindle up or just look around for a used one. Other than that, it works just as great.

Click the link and scroll to the middle of the page, to the right hand side is the Search box if you have any particular title you'd like to search for. They are updated daily - so be sure to bookmark the page.

Enjoy.

Monday, March 07, 2011

The Millionaire Messenger: Make a Difference and a Fortune Sharing Your Advice

Brendon Burchard is a Masterful Teacher and Trainer. His message and delivery has helped me and aided countless thousands of others to discover and enhance our voice, clearly define our message, and to properly package and present it to our audience and the world at large. For me, the journey has taken many years, tens of thousands of dollars and countless mistakes. Thankfully, there is now a roadmap and a framework that paves the way to sharing one's message with the world in a more effective and more fulfilling way.

In his latest 'Golden Ticket', "The Millionaire Messenger", Brendon Burchard has accomplished an incredible milestone having synthesized and distilled his many years of experience on the expert journey to GREATER INFLUENCE, IMPACT and BIGGER INCOME into a simple, easy to follow checklist. The result is a treasure trove of wisdom, insight and perspective rarely delivered in such an easily accessable format (without the tuition of years of searching and thousands of dollars).

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. The journey to the fulfilment that comes from sharing your message with the world in a bigger way to make a bigger difference begins with the 10 Steps Burchard succinctly lays out in "The Millionaire Messenger". This blueprint is most assuredly the gift of another 'Golden Ticket' to all who appropriate and apply the message delivered by "The Millionaire Messenger."

Friday, March 04, 2011

This One Will Blow Your Mind!

This image is mind bending... See it and try to work out how they did it
See it here

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Poke the Box

Seth Godin has been making the same plea in the last several books. "We Need You To Lead Us" was the subtitle of Tribes. Using reverse-psychology, Linchpin asked "Are You Indispensable?" to prod us into action. "I sell fireworks," he says at the beginning of Small Is The New Big in talking about how his writing encourages those with great ideas to get them done.

In Poke The Box, Seth removes the whatever directional intent there may have been in those prior works and imploring us to do something, anything. There are no barriers left.

Inger Kklekacz isn't photographing the Portland's live music scene because someone told her to. Modern Skirts' Gramahawk album was made up of music they wanted to make and a label didn't.The King's Sixth Finger didn't make sense to publishers, but it didn't stop Jolby. Amanda Hocking didn't wait to get picked and she sold 900,000 copies of her books.

If you are already doing, you don't need Poke The Box.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The Sims Medieval - Limited Edition Revisited

The Sims Medieval - Wow, I'm thrilled at the level of excitement that my initial blog post on The Sims Medieval - Limited Edition created. A few weeks ago, just after putting up a post about my experience with the game, several other blogs and sites syndicated the post sending traffic here in the process.

What is interesting is that, although I had been playing computer and video games since 1998, I never really spent own money on any game. Virtually all the games I've played were either borrowed, given to me or played with friends at their place.

But this time, thing were different - I thought I would buy it after seeing this short trailer on Amazon.com website. This turned out to be a very wise decision, because days after owning a copy of this The Sims Medieval - Limited Edition, I posted the said review and things started rolling from there. I now own 4 more copies of the best games out there including Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector's Edition and some more on the way.

I'm not someone who usually spend money of games, but that changes the moment I found out the fun, excitement and fulfillment one gets from owning one of the highly sort after collector items in the video game world.

I don't know how long the excitement will last, but one thing is for sure: I will keep having fun while I still have it.

I can't recommend it enough, if you too have a few change to spend, I strongly suggest you get one now. Not only because it is one of the best games ever made, but you are investing in one of the coolest collector's items out there.

Get it NOW!

My New Kindle Wireless Reading Device

I didn't think I'd ever want an e-reader, because I love reading "real" books too much. But now that I own a Kindle 3, I can't imagine my life without it! I still read "real" books, but I can download magazines, email my kindle newspaper articles I want to check out, email my kindle work documents I need to read, and keep many books with me at all times. It comes in so handy to take out a "book" of short stories when I'm in line at the post office, or bring up a book while i'm in the doctor's office waiting room!

One of the things that most surprised me about the Kindle is how many really great books are offered in the Amazon Kindle Store for free! I thought it would just be old books with expired copyrights, but there really are a lot of new books that Amazon offers for free as part of a promotion!

Also, another thing I was pleasantly surprised about is that you can always download the whole first chapter of ANY book for free, and then buy the rest of the book (and download it automatically) if you like it! This is so nice, because many times as soon as you start reading a book you know it's not going to be something you're interested in.

Overall, if you're on the fence about this product, I say go for it! It will only IMPROVE your reading life!

Get your now
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